Dan Stapleton
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Writing For
IGNLatest Reviews
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a very successful throwback to the days of dogfighting games like Star Wars: X-Wing and Wing Commander: Privateer. It smartly updates the gameplay with optional assists that make it a snap to jump in and get right to the most satisfying parts of the action. This...
Wolfenstein: Youngblood is an aggressively okay co-op shooter that doesn’t come close to recapturing the joy of its predecessor’s action or its surprisingly interesting characters and story. It doesn’t completely fumble the fun of its weapons and abilities or counteract the pleasing sensation of squishing Nazis between your toes, but...
Rage 2
With its large open world and vast array of upgrades to earn, Rage 2 feels very much like an antidote for Far Cry fans who have overdosed on that particular style and want a new take on the large-scale shooter-RPG idea. Though Avalanche hasn’t quite figured out what makes a...
Just Cause 4
Just Cause 4 has everything you expect from a Just Cause game, almost to a fault. Relative to Just Cause 3 the improvements are widespread across its beautiful open world, but generally minor. So while blowing up yet another dictator’s army is the same kind of mindless explosive fun and...
Star Control: Origins does a great job of creating a new universe and stocking it with a diverse range of weird and funny aliens to fight in intense arcadey space battles. But everything you’re forced to do on a planet’s surface is boring at best and an annoying chore at...
Besides the fact that there’s absolutely no evolution involved in it, Jurassic World: Evolution is a bad game because it’s just a bore of a park sim. Sure, the dinosaurs look nice enough, but the process of unlocking new species is beyond tedious and actually running the business is shallow...
State of Decay 2’s zombie-infested maps are good places to scavenge, fight, and survive in. Combat is satisfyingly brutal and the special zombies inspire some real fear of permanent death, even though the Blood Plague turns out to be more of a sniffle. But the bugs are just as persistent...
The wide variety of mech and pilot abilities make Into The Breach’s tactical combat deep, satisfying, and replayable. Every turn creates a new complex puzzle, and though sometimes there’s no perfect solution, finding the best way to minimize damage creates frequent eureka moments as you learn to make the most...
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is another epic-length episode of the humor that’s kept fans of the show laughing for 20 years. The Marvel vs DC parody delivers regular laugh-out-loud moments with only a few faltering gags, and the combat soon evolves into something much more complex and interesting...
Similar to the way Batman: Arkham City built on the foundation of Arkham Asylum, Middle-earth: Shadow of War is bigger and more ambitious in scope than Shadow of Mordor, with great results. The way it expands the Nemesis system with far greater variety and fortress sieges makes even better use...
With a set of thieving and assassination tools that beg to be used creatively, Heat Signature’s puzzle-like missions are great for jumping into for a few goes at a time to try something just crazy enough to work. That’s when the fun stuff happens.
Based on its colorful world, beautiful animation, and source material you might expect Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle to be “My first turn-based tactics game.” But you’re in for a surprise: even for XCOM vets some of its battles are challenging puzzles. Some of its tougher levels do devolve into...
